Chapter 25
I haven’t slept. Not because of the hospital chairs meant for saints or masochists, not because Oksana keeps stealing my coffee, not because every time Nico shifts in his bed, my heart tries to tear itself in half, but because every time I close my eyes, I see the truths he spilled earlier.
I see my father staging a call. A call designed to put a target on Nico’s back.
A call meant to test Valverde. Probe him. Force his hand.
If Valverde had nothing to hide, Nico would’ve come home—no harm, no war. If Valverde did have something to hide… my brother would’ve been a corpse, and Gustave would’ve stood over the ashes a hero.
A martyr.
My father didn’t send Nico to die. He sent him to reveal the enemy. He sent him, knowing death was an acceptable outcome. I’ve been replaying that logic for hours. The cold calculus. The way he wins no matter which son bleeds.
I thought I understood my father.
That he was cold-blooded in the service of survival, of legacy, of keeping us strong. I was wrong. He wasn’t protecting the family. He was serving his own ego.
Nico is awake—barely—propped against the pillows. His color is better. His voice is stronger. Oksana sits on the armrest of a chair, picking the stitching of her jeans with a bored assassin’s precision.
I should feel relief.
I feel… hollow.
Hollow, and something else simmering beneath it—dark, exact, surgical.
A man can only be lied to for so long before the truth becomes a blade.
Nico finishes a sip of water and looks at me with eyes that are too old. "You’re staring," he croaks.
"I’m thinking," I correct. Thinking about the ledger. About the payments Gustave hid. About the lies he fed me while my brother was trapped in Venezuela. Thinking about the mine in Mexico. About the call that was never meant for Nico’s ears.
Thinking about how close Gustave came to burying both of his sons— one in foreign soil, the other in ignorance.
Thinking about how to end a man who wanted to create kings out of corpses.
"Same thing," Oksana mutters and flicks the cap of the water bottle at me.
She hits my temple without looking.
I glare at her. She smirks. Nico laughs, then winces. I move to steady him; he bats my hand away like I’m fussing.
"I’m alive, Steph," he murmurs. "You don’t have to hover."
I hover anyway. Until darkness takes over, and it's time for the nurses to change shifts. Oksana steps out to intimidate a vending machine. I sit beside Nico and study the shadows under his eyes, the hollowness carved out by years he didn’t deserve.
"You should sleep," he says.
"So should you."
"You look worse."
"Shut up."
He smiles. It almost reaches his eyes. "You always were bad at being the older brother."
I rub my jaw. "I thought you were dead."
"I know."
A beat. Heavy.
"I grieved you," I whisper, surprising both of us. "Every day for three years."
"Steph—"
"I thought I wasn’t enough to save you."
He closes his eyes. "You weren’t meant to."
His lashes flicker, and I can tell he’s trying to pull himself together.
He fails spectacularly, which is how I know he’s telling the truth.
He takes a steadying breath. "Silvestre didn’t treat me badly," he says suddenly, as if offering a bone to a starving dog.
"Not at first. I wasn’t allowed to leave the estate, but…
inside, I had almost everything. Gym, shooting range, swim lanes, a private chef.
Access to online shopping. They gave me enough to feel… human."
My stomach twists. Enough, but never freedom. Enough to keep him sane. Enough to pretend he wasn’t a hostage.
He continues, but his voice is darkening, "Aurelio even brought in hookers sometimes. Thought it would keep my spirits up." His expression sharpens. "I never touched them. But the message was clear: play along, and life stays comfortable. Make noise, and things change."
I drag a hand over my mouth. "Jesus, Nico."
"Yeah." He shrugs. "But that attention worked both ways. While they were busy pretending I wasn’t a prisoner, I used it.
" His eyes light with the fire I remember from before Venezuela stole him.
"I learned the house. The staff. The blind spots.
Their routines. I slipped into offices, copied drives, found files—everything.
Emails, transactions, recordings, and meeting logs.
Stuff on Silvestre, on Aurelio, on Donna Margarita. Stuff on the betrayal. All of it."
I straighten. "Where is it?"
Nico grimaces like he’s remembering something vital and ugly. "Mexico City."
Oksana appears in the doorway, back pressed to the frame, eyes narrowing slightly as she listens.
Nico continues, but the way his eyes stray to Oksana is almost as if…
he's worried she'd call him out on a lie.
I bury that thought as soon as it comes up.
If I start to distrust my brother, I'm opening myself up to dangerous territory, especially after my father's betrayal.
"When I escaped, I took the drive with me. Worst chase of my life getting out of that province. I nearly died five times before I made it to the capital. I had a few hours before they found me again. I put the drive into a safe deposit box under a shit-tier alias that even Silvestre wouldn’t bother to trace.
Then I called Gustave. Told him to come get me. "
I go still. So does Oksana.
"And he sent men," Nico adds. "Just… not his."
Oksana inhales sharply. Nico keeps going. ""I should have told you about the file yesterday. It has everything you need to bring down Margarita, Silvestre, and maybe Edoardo too, depending on how much he knew." He winces. "Shit. I should've told you when I first woke up."
"It’s okay, Oksana told me about it, I should have asked," I say automatically, though we all know it isn’t.
My voice steadies. "We’ve been working on this, too.
Me. Enrico, Marcello, Toni, and the new capo that took the Giordano’s seat, Raffael DeSantis.
" I wince at the mention of the last name, but I suppose for better or worse, Raf is with us. "Valverde’s name keeps showing up where it shouldn’t.
Edoardo’s money keeps moving where it can’t.
This file, it could tie everything together. "
Nico nods, and urgency snaps through his exhaustion. "Then you need to go get it. The box is at Banco Federal. Branch on Paseo de la Reforma. Safe deposit number 3032."
Oksana looks at me. "Road trip."
Nico huffs a laugh. "Steph… everything you need is in that box. Everything to burn them down."
I look between my brother and my wife, one returned to me by miracle, the other handed to me by fate that wants to see what kind of man I’ll become.
"I can’t leave you alone," I say, the words scraping out before I can stop them. I can't. I don't have men here whom I fully trust. Not against my father. It’s not strategy. It’s instinct.
Oksana exhales like she’s heard this argument from men who didn’t survive it. "I’ll go."
Something breaks loose under my skin—anger and possessiveness twisting into one violent spark. "Absolutely not." It comes out harder than intended, a command cut from stone.
She steps closer, eyes on mine, tired of being told no by men who aren’t me. "Stephano."
"No," I repeat. "I’m not sending you into a city full of El Arquitecto's cartel members without me."
She tips her chin, that lethal patience trembling at the edges.
She looks like she's going to argue with me, and I ready myself for a fight, but then the strangest thing happens: she softens, and another sigh escapes her.
"Grigori will keep him safe," she says, jerking her head toward Nico. "I promise."
Nico snorts lightly, a spark that is more amusement than the situation warrants glinting in his eyes, paired with something else… calculation. "Great. A Pakhan for a bodyguard. I’m officially more protected than the Pope."
Oksana shoots him a look. "He’s not your bodyguard."
"Right," Nico deadpans. "He’s your personal executioner who occasionally agrees to keep me alive. Much better."
She ignores him completely and turns to me, "Stephano," she says quietly, "he'll keep him safe."
Everything in me rebels—violently—at the idea of letting Nico out of my sight again. Every instinct screams he’s mine to protect, mine to guard, mine to fix. The fear is old, bone-deep, and ugly. But she’s right.
Gustave can’t touch Nico with Grigori at his back.
And Grigori would burn continents for her.
That’s the part that unsettles me, the mathematics of loyalty.
She’s offering her brother’s protection like it’s nothing.
Like, I am something worth that kind of currency.
And for a moment, I’m not sure what to do with that.
Or what it makes us. Or why she’d choose me in this equation at all.
My jaw tightens. A decision anchors itself inside me with the weight of iron. "We’re getting that drive." That is the truth that sharpens everything else. "Rest," I say to Nico, planning the next steps. "I’ll be here."
"You’d better," he murmurs. Then softer, "You’re the only Conti I trust."
Fuck, that hurts. I wait until he falls asleep.
Oksana is scrolling through her phone. She waves when I give her a questioning glance.
"I'll be there in a sec," it says, like she can read my mind and knows I need a moment.
I go out into the hallway and nod at the guards stationed there.
Oksana's men—I don’t trust any of mine, not right now, not fully, not with my brother.
A dry laugh escapes me. I'm trusting the fucking Russians with my brother's life.
Not my father. Not the man who failed us.
Who offered my brother as a sacrifice for political currency.
His son! For a kingdom he wanted to control from behind the throne. I inhale. Exhale.
Start counting the ways I can dismantle him.
It doesn't take her long to find me like this.